


unsay these reckless words (find hope in the hopeless)

by mystiritsu



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with no happy ending, M/M, Time Travel, sorry about that lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:01:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26698669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystiritsu/pseuds/mystiritsu
Summary: felix knew, once again, that he shouldn’t be doing this, he was far from oblivious to the specific rules of time travel, but sylvain looked ethereal standing under the sunshine, glowing like a thousand angels and smiling like he knew the answers to everything in the universe.felix just couldn’t look away.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Kudos: 10





	unsay these reckless words (find hope in the hopeless)

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is actually a rewrite of a fic i wrote for another fandom a few years ago- i liked the premise so i decided to keep it, but i did change some things and rewrite the ending. i hope you enjoy! 
> 
> title is from the song train wreck by james arthur. 
> 
> tw // mentions of drinking, guns

felix met sylvain for the first time in new york city in the year 1973. it was felix’s second jump. he was new and inexperienced, so after a few incidental seconds of traveling at high relativistic speeds and feeling like he was being torn apart limb by limb (he technically was, actually), he accidentally landed right in the middle of a nightclub—- thankfully, everyone was either dancing, passionately making out with each other, or altogether too drunk to care that a random guy had just appeared seemingly out of nowhere on the flashing dance floor. felix had blinked. once, twice, until the realization of what happened hit him. feeling numb, he stood there for a second, working through a storm of calculations in his head, trying to figure out the exact location he was in and when he had to go back, as well as the coordinates of the area. he created a mental checklist of the tasks he had to do next. 

knowing, of course, that the bar wasn’t where he was supposed to be, he wove through the thick crowd, trying to find an entrance he could slip quietly out of. the music was blaring in his head and all the noise made him feel dizzy, paired along with the general after-effects of time traveling. but before he could find a way to exit the bar and go to the place he was supposed to land, a hand had grabbed him and pulled him back to the dance floor— to the exact place he had originally landed. through the deafening music and the smell of hard liquor and weed, felix managed to vaguely make out the stranger’s face. there was this dazzling glow that emitted around his body, paired with bright red hair and a smile so bright it made felix feel like his insides were melting. felix, to his own dismay, forgot about his mission that night, dancing with him until his legs turned to jello and singing along to the songs of the 60s and 70s with him until his voice had disappeared. 

his name was sylvain, felix had learned, months and several jumps later, when he found himself going back to the same bar. in sylvain’s time, only 2 weeks had passed. sylvain lit up as he saw felix enter the dimly lit room anxiously, waving him over to the bar area he was sitting at. 

“hey!” sylvain said, grinning. “i knew you would come back eventually! let me get you a drink.” 

felix could only nod, pondering over and over again why he came back. he mentally cursed himself. this wasn’t part of his schedule, and he certainly didn’t have the time. but as he sat down and had a few drinks, alcohol running through his whole body and making him feel warm, felix remembers having the thought that this wasn’t so bad after all. maybe he could stay here, if he was allowed. maybe. 

sylvain took him onto the dance floor again that night, laughing about some fling that went wrong and about how life should be about feeling happy and fleeing away from any possible complication. felix felt himself nodding along despite understanding that this way of thinking was bound to put sylvain into a bigger pile of problems in the future, wanting to desperately cling onto the joyful aura the other gave off. feeling that for once in his life, he was having fun. 

he left that night letting sylvain know that this may be the last time they ever saw each other, trying to ignore the disappointment plastered across sylvain’s face. felix almost laughed at how obvious the other was with his emotions. he felt bad, too, but felix didn’t like making promises. they were always broken eventually, no matter the circumstance. 

the third time felix saw sylvain was the first time he had saw him outside of the constrained darkness of the bar. felix didn’t mean to come back, he really didn’t (really didn’t), but his assignment was getting nowhere as usual and he just wanted to find someone to talk to. sylvain was the first to come to mind. of course, he had no way of knowing where sylvain lived, so he spent a few hours strolling around the general area of the bar, hoping that through some miracle, they would be able to catch each other on the street. a bit stalkerish, now that felix looks back on it. at the time he wasn’t in the right head space to care. eventually, through the work of god, fate, science, or whatever, felix spotted sylvain walking down on the other side of the street, red hair hard to miss. sylvain spotted him at the same time, and their eyes met- for a brief second, felix felt a jolt run through his body, sort of like the feeling you get when you know something bad is about to happen. felix shook his head, pretending it was nothing, and waved back at the other. as they walked down the busy street together, packed with tourists as it was nearing christmas, sylvain had asked felix out. perhaps it was in sylvain’s nature to ask almost-strangers out on dates, or perhaps sylvain knew, somewhere deep down, that felix didn’t have a lot of time. 

no matter the reason, felix almost said no, almost told him he was in fact a time traveller leaping through endless eras of time trying to find an object able to save his reality, the crumbling world of 2135, but sylvain looked at him with those deep brown eyes and felix couldn’t find it in himself to refuse. 

and so, on felix’s third visit back to sylvain’s city in 1973, he walked with the other, exchanging stories as they made their way down the littered roads of new york and through the suburban neighbourhoods shaded by towering oak trees. felix knew, once again, that he shouldn’t be doing this, he was far from oblivious to the specific rules of time travel, but sylvain looked ethereal standing under the sunshine, glowing like a thousand angels and smiling like he knew the answers to everything in the universe. 

felix just couldn’t look away. 

they eventually had arrived at a small cafe, sylvain ordering a vanilla latte and felix an espresso. they talked for hours, shared more bits and pieces of their lives, and felix found out that sylvain had just graduated college and lived alone. he had no immediate family left, his parents abandoning him when he was little and being an only child. felix felt a pang in his chest, feeling more sympathy for a stranger than he’s ever felt for anyone else in his entire life, even before the whole “end of the world” fiasco that was currently going on in his time. 

of course, felix wasn’t great at talking, much less share information about himself, but sylvain made that up by talking for the both of them- for that felix was eternally grateful. as well, despite doing years of research, felix was still unaccustomed to the way of talking in that era. he feared he would let something slip, like how he wished he could use the card in his wrist to pay for something, before realizing they didn’t have that back then. so, for the time being, he let sylvain do the talking, in which the latter didn’t seem to mind at all. after the cafe, they made their way to the cinemas, watching a sappy romcom that made felix curl up into a ball while covering his eyes while sylvain sat there laughing at him, throwing popcorn kernels at the area of his body that was exposed. felix felt himself smiling along. he really liked sylvain, and everything felt perfect, almost too perfect. under any other circumstance, this could have been the start to a blossoming relationship- one where their friend group would laugh at them, say something like “get a room!”, but felix wasn’t that naive. however, just for that day, just for that afternoon, he was able to feel a bit more normal. 

“did you know that the fastest bird on the planet can travel at 321.8 kilometres per hour?” sylvain had said once, staring up at the sky above them. “like, i don’t know, i think if i were a normal bird i would shit on people’s heads just for fun, just to get a reaction out of them, but to be the fastest bird… that sounds kind of nice, actually. in my next life, i hope to be reincarnated as that bird. i want to fly high above the world, high above anything who thinks they can tell me how to live my life.” sylvain said as they sat on a bench together. “freedom at last.” 

felix agreed with him then, thinking that it would be nice to be able to fly, to see the world from a different point of view. 

\------- 

felix ended up getting stuck in paris in 1960 for over 2 years. apparently the “object” he was looking for was created in paris during that year. but no matter how much felix looked, he just couldn’t find it. and to make matters worse, someone else from his present had also come to that year, in hopes of obtaining in before felix did, with intentions felix could recognize as far from good. and so he stayed, fighting off the other as well as trying to find the thing, or entity, that would supposedly save them all. 

paris was nice, he supposed. the “paris” that he grew up knowing was already long destroyed in a war lost to history, so he spent some of his spare time walking through the nooks and crannies of the city. he visited the library often, reading through both fiction and nonfiction, as well as the daily newspaper that would be updated on the stand outside city hall every morning. he wondered about sylvain sometimes, about how he was doing, before he realized this was 1960 and he probably wasn’t even born yet. felix would sigh at that thought and then push it to the back of his mind. 

july 1962 he was finally able to jump again. felix let out a sigh of relief, writing down the last few lines in his journal to document what had happened here. despite the object being created here, he wasn’t able to find any new leads, so after doing some further calculations again and rewiring the system connected to his body, he was free to go to another era. 

the fourth time felix saw sylvain was after 2 years in felix’s time, and a week in sylvain’s. sylvain could tell immediately that something was different with felix when they met each other at the cafe again (through some searching on felix’s behalf), but didn’t say anything. felix was again, eternally thankful. like the last time, the two ended up talking for hours just sitting at the coffee table, sharing quiet anecdotes about their life and not-so-subtle leg kicking under the table. sylvain had ended up dragging felix outside into the sun, where he pressed their lips together in a smile, softly, and felix could feel himself falling deeper and deeper. 

as they made their way back to sylvain’s apartment and sylvain showed him around his place, a part of felix knew that he couldn’t keep up this lie much further. he knew sylvain would eventually ask to see where he lived as well, in which felix would have no real answer to. and a part of felix, a much deeper part of himself, knew that this was never going to work out, not in any timeline. the longer he stayed with sylvain, the more he was just going to end up hurting the latter. 

but felix was never good at self control. he was exhausted from the time traveling. he was exhausted from having to move from country to country, decade to decade, in search of something that might not even be there. being with sylvain made him feel energized, it made him feel alive, like he was seeing the sun and feeling its warmth for the first time again. like he was seeing the colors of the color wheel spin around and around, creating a flurry of strokes, hues, and spectrums that was constructed into a painting artists would spend centuries fighting over. felix needed that more than anything, but the deep, dark part of himself that was screaming at him to stop this madness never seemed to leave him alone.

\------

the fifth time felix saw sylvain was the last time. 

they walked together under the moonlight, sidewalk illuminated by the street lamps and the sky above. felix was planning to tell sylvain everything, and then leave him alone forever, even though he knew it would hurt the both of them. he figured lying would just make things worse. sylvain probably wouldn’t believe him anyways, and felix would disappear from the memories of sylvain like every other insignificant fling. but it was the only option he had left, until sylvain opened his mouth to say something that made him freeze on the spot. 

“it’s me.” 

“what?” felix asked, confused at first. 

“i’m what you’re searching for, felix. people aren’t supposed to time jump without a specific program or permission from the government, but i made one, with a friend. a time machine. we made it originally to go back a few years only to visit someone we lost, but the machine went berserk- i don’t know, i guess we didn’t account for everything that could have gone wrong- and my friend got stuck in a time loop. i tried whatever i could to bring them back, but they’re still there, still reliving the same day over and over again. paris february 24th, 1960.” 

felix’s eyes opened at this, realization creeping in. sylvain continued before he had a chance to speak. 

“i tried to save them, i really did. having to let go was the hardest thing i’ve ever done. but i moved out of paris, and eventually, came here. made some money, got an apartment. tried to blend in. and i thought that would be it, until a man visited me a few months ago, told me about the effects my time travelling had on 2135. i couldn’t believe it at first- there’s no way someone as insignificant as myself could have such a large impact on an entire universe, but apparently mother nature or whatever doesn’t like people messing with time. he told me unless i was removed from this timeline, the universe would blow up or something, which sounds like bullshit to me, but i suppose he was telling the truth. and then he told me someone would come to me, and that they would be the one to end this cycle once and for all. i knew it was you from the first time we met, felix.” sylvain smiled at that. 

“and now here we are. we’re nearing the deadline, aren’t we? you have to do it, felix.” 

felix knew what sylvain was going to say next. he didn’t want to hear it. 

“you have to kill me.” 

felix felt a shudder throughout his entire body, and he fell to his knees. the world was spinning. 

“no,” felix said, tone hard. “no, no, no, no, no. there has to be another way. there has to be something else we can do to fix this- you said it yourself, we’re both insignificant to the universe, you can’t be the reason why everything is happening.” 

sylvain continued smiling, but his aura was no longer happy, no longer joyful. 

felix didn’t like it one bit. 

“okay, he said finally. fine. let’s say i agree to this. how would i even kill you? i don't have any weapons.” 

sylvain chuckled a bit at this, pulling out something from his bag. it was a gun- but not really. a type of pistol from their time, one that shot electromagnetic waves strong enough to stop someone’s heart within seconds, painlessly. it was used for only the most extreme cases in laboratories back at home. 

they both didn’t say something for a while. felix stared at sylvain for a second, taking in his features. sylvain was beautiful, he decided. hair flowing in the sun, eyes sharp, and smile wide enough to make anyone feel okay for a while. nothing like felix. 

“god,” felix said at last, running his hands through his hair. “god, what the fuck. what the fuck,” he repeated, trying to hold himself together. 

“i’m sorry, felix” sylvain said, sounding much more put together, which made felix feel even worse because, well, because of what was going to happen. 

“3 days.” felix said instead, firmly, after thinking it over for a minute. 

“3 days for what?” sylvain asked, confused now. 

“i’m sure our world can wait 3 days. it’s not going to collapse right now- i… i don’t have any proof, but i can feel it, so i hope you can believe me. ill do-” felix waves his hands around- “whatever, but give us 3 days first. i want to spend more time with you. please.” 

sylvain blinks for a second before he grins, a genuine smile, and nods. “okay. okay,” he says, reaching his hand out to pull felix up from the position he was in. 

\------- 

they spend the next three days completely by each other’s side, and felix couldn’t have asked for anything better. they buy a fish for sylvain’s apartment, go to the park, watch movies. sylvain tells felix about the time one of his friends, dimitri, ate weeds without cooking them first because he thought it would be tasty. felix told sylvain about his time moving from program to program, training to become a traveller and learning how to withstand the weight of moving through time. felix found out that sylvain was insanely smart, and knew that if sylvain were back in their original time, he would be renowned as a world-leading scientist. sylvain laughed at this, told him he wasn’t really all that and that he just liked playing with numbers because his mind was always working too fast to keep up with. they lay in bed sometimes, just staying in each other’s presence, and for a few blissful moments felix was able to forget about everything. 

felix loved him. he loved him so much, it hurt. he cursed the gods, or whoever was out there, that this was the fate he was chained to, and wished more than anything, that he was able to change it. but he knew it was too late now. the clock was already moving. 

and then, like all good things, it came to an end all too fast. this time, felix knew he had to do it this time- time wasn’t going to wait for them anymore. 

they stood in sylvain’s living room at dawn, the sun’s rays only just barely hitting the window, letting in a few stray strands of orange sunlight, lighting up the room with a faint glow. sylvain’s hair looked like it was on fire, flowing on its own and looking ethereal, much like sylvain himself. almost like a phoenix ready to take off into a universe far away from their own. 

felix stared at sylvain, pistol in one of his left hand, shaking. the tears were really threatening to spill out now, and he bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself. sylvain looked beautiful as always, another sad smile on his face. 

“i’m sorry,” felix whispered, over and over again. 

“there’s nothing to apologize for,” sylvain said, coming forward to hug felix. felix felt the warmth immediately, and clung onto him for as long as he possibly could. 

eventually, they had to let go. 

“take care of our fish, alright?” sylvain began, voice quavering slightly, mirroring felix’s. “we haven’t even named them yet, but i’m sure you’ll come up with something good. just not something lame like, “goldy” or whatever... and make sure they don’t kill each other,” sylvain added, irony laced to his voice. “i’ve left the paperwork for this apartment on the table. it’s yours now, so take care of it as well, alright? i know the place is small and it’s not the greatest neighbourhood but i’ve had the time of my life here and i’m sure you will to. just… felix, please promise me you’ll have fun out there-- live your life to the fullest, fall in love, dance with someone who’ll sweep you off your feet... i won’t be there for you, but other people will, and you deserve all of the love in the world. you really do-” sylvain choked out the last word, really shaking now, and felix couldn’t bear it any longer, but he continued. 

“i knew you were the one right from the start, but that didn’t stop me, did it? it didn’t stop me from falling for you. you’re perfect, felix- no matter the timeline, no matter the universe, whenever i’m reborn i’ll choose you. i’ll always choose you, over and over again. i can only hope that you will do the same.” sylvain stopped for real this time, and looked at felix one more time, in quiet solitude. 

“i will, sylvain,” felix managed to let out, tears spilling freely now, raising his trembling arm to point the pistol at sylvain’s chest. 

“i’ll always choose you.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter @serenitykwan


End file.
